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Hi guys I forgot to take start photos but I spent around 3 hours finishing this off You can see some progress but hand tools are slow

I found this today at Walton-on-the-Naze, UK. It’s pretty small and I’m really struggling with identifying it. Might be something cool but maybe not even a fossil? It was found on the beach and is likely from the London clay (Eocene - Ypresian stage). It’s really common to find plant matter in this, I came away with loads of fossilised wood. So I’m thinking possibly some sort of plant fossil? Maybe a seed or something? Was also thinking it might be a coprolite or something like that but it’s fairly uniform in shape. It’s a little damaged and shows what seems to be clay infilling.

***Picture Heavy*** Went down to my local beach after work on Monday with the intention of looking for plant seeds from the London Clay beds. After waiting half an hour for the tide to recede i could get to the best material.... Within the first five minutes something large caught my eye in one of the material piles.....See if you can spot it... A nearly perfect 58mm Otodus! With intact cusps and serrations, maybe an Otodus Aksuaticus? Needless to say it was a bit of a surprise! Found a few of the usual Striatolamia teeth in situ. And a bit of a ray plate. Found a fish vert slowly wearing out of the clay. A few seeds and a tiny bone (10mm) photos are of poor quality but any ideas of what it is? Seeds. Tiny bone. The tide had started to come in by that point so headed up onto the beach. Photos showing the red crag cliffs with the London Clay bed below it. This part of the beach is picked over a lot so i do not tend to spend to much time there. (Unless its productive such as after a storm where the shingle gets washed away to expose the London clay beds under it then it is incredible ) Few beach finds, the majority are a bit worn after being rolled around by the waves etc. Few partials of much bigger teeth. So in all, quite a productive couple of hours! Thanks all!

Hello forum, Recently I went to Walton on the Naze and I found a nodule on the beach that contained many fossil, some quite remarkable containing a shark tooth, scales, bones, fossilized wood and many more things to excavated. At first I was not going to pick it up ,as it was heavy (20lb to be exact). But I was upset to find out that I walked past a large megalodon tooth that someone else picked up. So here I am and now have this lump of rock, I have soak it for some time, to hopefully stop or slowdown pyritization. Now in the next few days I will be starting my prepping journey. Will anyone be able to give me advice, as I'm only using Dremel's, I wont be able to afford any thing else as it will not be in my budget. Opinion WANT TO REMOVE THE FOSSIL WOOD! THE SHELL ARE CHALKY DONT KNOW WHAT TO DO TO STOP THIS FROM FALLING APART? AND PREVENTING PYRITIZATION WITH NAIL POLISH OR CLEAR VARNISH ? Here are some pictures out of many.

Hi all, Found this on the London Clay at Bawdsey, Suffolk, England. Have found other fish bones before but never one like this. Please may some help out with the identity of it! Cant find any bones similar looking on the internet and it has got me puzzled? Thanks everyone!

Hi all! Have been out the past couple of weekends to my local sharks teeth spot - Bawdsey in Suffolk, the first three trips i spent on the first area of the beach directly below the red crag cliffs. Found a few but none of really any quality. Best one was a very pretty patterned Carcharocles auriculatus ? (Can anyone confirm?) seen in the first photo top left, and a very worn large tooth (seen in the second photo, looks a bit Meggy?) - I have no idea about species on this one! As well as the usual Carcharias hopei and Striatolamia macrota, a couple of fish verts, some seed pods and ray teeth. Had my most productive day ever yesterday though, after not finding to many previously in my usual spots, went to a spot slightly further along and ended up with 156 teeth in about two hours!! None that were out of the ordinary however just the usual species. Some kid on the beach who was also searching had a perfect Otodus, it must have been nearly 3 inches long!! I was rather jealous of him! Can anyone ID the larger tooth that is bottom left? Still after the 6 inch Meg from this spot! Thanks for reading!!!

this is hardly worth posting in comparison to what other put up here but i was so happy to find this little one yesterday! I went on a little adventure on sheer impulse yesterday afternoon down to the Essex coast and found myself landing in Walton-On-The-Naze. Apart for the vert if found a fair amount of what i think is wood and crab fragments, not a 100% on the crab bits but i haven't got around to rummaging through my books to find out yet. Also come across a few odd bits that i have no clue as the what they are, some i found on the shore and one bit up by the crag cliffs. I'll post a photo below, if anyone can point me in the right direction ill be greatful, the area is Caenozoic.

Headed down to Bawdsey in Suffolk for a few hours. The beach has built up loads covering up the best big teeth grounds, still managed to find a few. Got the Striatolamia macrotas from the bottom of the shingle ridge and also a fish vertebra? (Can anyone confirm). The rest of the teeth were all from the red crag layer. Also found a possible cow shark tooth which i have never found! (Please say it is!!!) And some other fossil, i have found a lot of these previously but never as large. Apologies i cant take any better photos due to using my phone! If anyone can help with identifying these that would be marvellous! Thanks for reading guys and girls!

Today I am heading out for the first time to investigate the Miocene of England, previously I had only hunted the Jurassic I am going to the isle of sheppey and later today I will post the results of my trip

Hi Guys and Girls. Going through some of my old teeth on the weekend and found the one below. Any ideas on what it is? Doesn't look like any shark tooth i have ever found from my usual sites. Thinking possibly fish? It is around 13mm long. Out of the thousands i have found over the years none are like this. Unfortunately, i am unsure of exactly where i got it, but would have been either the Rocks at Ramsholt (London Clay and Red Crag) or Bawdsey (London Clay and Red Crag) as these were the only two places i used to collect from. Have also included what i think is a Cosmopolitodus hastalis/ Carcharodon hastalis that i found a few months back at Bawdsey. If Mods want to edit photos to make brighter etc please do!! Thanks!!!!

Hi All, I’m very much an amateur and new to this site / forum. This is my first post. Can anyone please help with identification. This object was found in the inter tide mud flat region of East Mersey Island, Essex County, England, UK. Cudmore Grove Park beach location. It appears to have many features resembling bone. There is an inner sponge like area on cross section - possible trabecular structure. The shape has a clear indent groove on the assessed outer surface. My first thoughts were that it could possibly be something like a Patella. Online searching suggests a possible Femur Head part. But then that may be my desire to believe. Can anyone suggest what it may be, and if bone not rock then what could it come from given the location and geology. Many thanks for any anticipated input. Regards, Bob

Would anyone be able to ID these two finds from Ramsholt, Suffolk. The site is mostly made up of Eocene material from the London Clay beds & reworked Eocene in the Red Crag Miocene layer. The first looks like a dermal plate but I'm not sure & the second one I have no idea. Many thanks, Connah.

Hi there, i found this today within the shingle at Walton on the Naze in Essex, UK. The usual teeth found here are striatolamia and Otodus but in humble opinion this doesn’t appear like any of those. Dare I say more like carcharocles (is that spelled right?) I’m trying to not get too excited but any help would be appreciated.

Hi all, my wife found this impressive vertebra on the beach at Walton-on-the-Naze this morning. Apart from it being from a bony fish, is there any way of narrowing down the species? It is from the London Clay deposits (Ypresian / early Eocene).

Hi Forum Members, I would like to have some help with some identification, I believe to have found a fossilized bracket fungus, found at Walton on the naze around 1 week ago washed up in amongst fossilized tree material. At first i thought it was a crab, but when i took it home to my amazement it was to me to be a piece fossilized wood with fungus in a matrix. Also I would like to have advise on how to preserve fossilized wood ,seeds and shark teeth from London clay. As I have been told, the way to preserve my fossils from the naze. Will be the process of have them in boiling water , then let them dry and then put nail polish on them. Here are 2 photos. SHARKY

Hi, can anyone help with an ID for this fossil found in the clay at beltinge (Herne Bay) kent while hunting for shark teeth. I have no idea what it could be. Any ideas would be really appreciated.

G'day all! After three years since my last visit to the UK, i finally returned in December 2017 for another massive collecting trip across England. This was my most ambitious tour of the UK's Mesozoic and Cenozoic vertebrate deposits thus far, with 20 days of collecting across ten different locations. These were (in chronological order from first visit): Abbey Wood in East London Beltinge in Kent Bouldnor on the Isle of Wight Compton Bay to Grange Chine on the Isle of Wight Lyme Regis to Charmouth in Dorset Aust Cliff in Gloucestershire Saltwick Bay in Yorkshire Kings dyke in Cambridgeshire Minster in Kent Tankerton in Kent. If you went collecting at any of these places in the last month, there's probably a 25.6975% chance you saw me looking very intimidating hunched over in my hooded rain jacket and muddy pants 14 of those collecting days were back-to-back, a new record for me, though it was very tiring! Having just come from the hot Australian summer, winter collecting in England was certainly a challenge at times and my fingers and toes froze to the point i could barely feel them on multiple occasions. Temperatures for many of the days reached 0 degrees celcius or below, with ice on the ground around me and even snow falling while i was trying to collect! I also went out during the middle of the night to collect using a head torch on some occasions (mainly at Bouldnor) due to the tidal conditions and bad weather which prevented collecting during the day. All in all i am certainly pleased with how the trip went, i was successful at all locations with the exception of Tankerton. For some of the locations (Aust Cliff, Kings dyke, Saltwick Bay) it was also my first and only visit, so i'm glad i still managed to do well with no prior experience at these sites and with such limited time at each. I have tried to write this trip report not only as a means of showing you guys my finds but also to provide an informative overview of some of the better locations for Mesozoic and Cenozoic vertebrates across England for others who might be planning similar trips. Anyway, here are the results! Pictures will be spread across the next 12 posts due to file size restrictions. Abbey Wood - East London (6/12/17, 30/12/17 and 31/12/17) Formation: Blackheath ('Lesnes Shell Bed') Deposit Age: 54.5 million years (Eocene) Fossil Diversity: Sharks, bony fish, chimaeroids, bivalves, gastropods, rare mammals, turtles and crocodiles This was one of only two inland locations i visited (the other being Kings dyke). As i have found, the majority of the UK's easily accessible fossil collecting locations are coastal! Abbey Wood is an excellent location just 45 minutes on the tube from central London. It is situated in a park called the Lesnes Abbey Woods and there is a small collecting area that is open to the public for shallow digging (see my first two pictures below). You definitely need a sifter, shovel and basin of water at this location to have any real success. Be warned though that once you combine the fine Blackheath sediments with water during sifting you get some pretty gnarly mud so expect to come away from this site looking like you've just been rolling around in the dirt. I'm sure i got some interesting looks from people on the tube going back to London it was all worth it though, as every single sift load produced at least one shark tooth across the three days i visited. Very impressive considering the number of obvious holes dotted around the ground from years worth of other collectors visiting. It should be noted though that the mammalian material from this location is of high scientific importance, and collecting here is allowed on the condition that any mammalian finds be brought to the attention of and handed in to specialists like Dr Jerry hooker at the Natural History Museum in London. I didn't find any such material on my trips unfortunately. Here is the designated collecting area. The statue at the front is of Coryphodon, one of the rare Eocene mammals that has been found at the site. The full haul of shark teeth from three days of sifting in the collecting area. Most are from Striatolamia and Sylvestrilamia. I gave up trying to count them once i got past 100 Some of the other fishy bits that often turn up during sifting, including guitar fish teeth on the far left and two dermal denticles (Hypolophodon sylvestris), one gar pike fish tooth in the middle (Lepisosteus suessionensis), one shark vertebra down the bottom and unidentified bony fish vertebrae on the right. I don't typically collect shells, but i picked these up for the sake of adding a bit more diversity to my Abbey Wood collection. These are bivalves and gastropods of various species. The molluscan diversity from this one location is actually quite impressive. Beltinge - Kent (7/12/17 and 29/12/17) Formation: Upnor ('Beltinge Fish Bed') Deposit Age: 56.5 million years old (Paleocene) Fossil Diversity: Sharks, chimaeroids, bony fish, rays, turtles, crocodiles, bivalves, wood This is my favourite shark tooth collecting location in the UK and probably my favourite that i have visited anywhere so far. The shoreline directly opposite the access point at the end of Reculver Drive in Beltinge is loaded with teeth and dare i say it's impossible to come here and walk away empty handed. The shore however is very flat so there is generally only about a two hour window of time that collecting can be carried out here, one hour either side of low tide. Conditions can also vary depending on how sanded over the shore is, whether the Beltinge Fish Bed itself is exposed and how low the tide drops. However even on a poor day you will still find teeth here, just not as many! I experienced this first hand as the first day i visited on December 7th the conditions were excellent. The tide dropped quite low, there wasn't too much sand covering the clay and the Beltinge Fish Bed was exposed. This allowed direct in-situ collecting of teeth from this rich layer and i ended up with something like 240 teeth from just a couple of hours of looking. The second visit i made on December 29 of the same month was almost the exact opposite. It's amazing how quickly these coastal locations can change! The shore was largely sanded over, the fish bed was covered and the tide didn't drop anywhere near as much. I was out about the same amount of time as the first but only managed 69 teeth (only ). Keep these things in mind if you are planning a visit. Luckily though i didn't just find shark teeth, i also managed to locate some of the other less common finds as you will see below! Here is the area of shoreline that produces teeth, photographed on December 7th. It was quite cold and rainy! Three teeth sitting next to each other as found. More as-found shark teeth. This one made me quite excited when i saw it. It's a large piece of chimaeroid fish jaw and mouthplate coming straight from the Beltinge Fish Bed itself (the darker, dull-green sandy clay in this picture). Beltinge is continued in the next post.

HI everyone here are the best of my finds, found at Walton on the Naze over the past year. The big tooth on left corner I believe is an Otodus that was given to me by another fossil hunting enthusiast. Sadly didn't find it myself but it is still nice to have as a memento of Walton .